"You're honest, anyway," said he, "and I shall tell you something that will comfort you. She was as jealous of you as you were of her."
"She was!" the girl exclaimed, incredulous, surprised. "Of me?" You're crazy, ain't you?"
"Not a bit."
"What have I got to make her jealous?"
"A lot of things. You've beauty such as hers will never be—"
"Dellaw!" said Madge, incredulously. She had no knowledge of her own attractiveness. "Don't you start in makin' fun o' me."
"I'm not making fun of you. You're very beautiful—my aunt said so, the Colonel said so, and I've known it, all along."
No one had ever said a thing like this to her, before. She looked keenly at him, weighing his sincerity. When she finally decided that he really meant what he had said, she breathed a long sigh of delight.
"They said that I—was beautiful!"
"They did, and, little girl, you are; and you have more than beauty. You have health and strength such as a bluegrass girl has never had in all the history of women."